Majoring in Music

Majoring in Music

Our program offers the best features of a music conservatory and a traditional liberal arts experience. You are challenged in the studio and classroom to be a first-rate performer, composer and scholar. Your professors work closely with you to tailor the program to your needs and interests. You can major in music or music and technology, with a concentration in performance, theory, ethnomusicology, music education, history or composition. Master classes and lectures will provide regular opportunities for you to work with internationally known performers, composers and scholars. Through Connections, you’ll integrate your music studies with your choice of an academic Pathway, and then practice everything you’ve learned in an internship. The discipline and critical-thinking skills you develop will prepare you for graduate school or a career in a number of fields.

Performance and private study opportunities

Public performances are a priority. You can perform during one of the many recitals each semester or join one of several ensembles, including the concert band, jazz ensemble, orchestra, percussion ensemble and chamber choir. If you are interested in musical theater, you can audition for one of our annual shows, produced in collaboration with the theater department. We also offer free music lessons to qualified students through the Jack Niblack '98 Music Lessons Fund.

Facilities

Cummings Arts Center boasts technology-rich classrooms, the Greer Music Library, two performance halls and numerous studios and practice rooms. We are also an "All-Steinway School." In Cummings, you have access to a recording studio, a control room with connectivity to two major recital halls and a production-quality electronic music studio.

Learn more about Connections, Connecticut College's innovative new curriculum.

About Connecticut College

Connecticut College educates students to put the liberal arts into action as citizens in a global society. A leader in the liberal arts since 1911, the College is home to nationally ranked programs for internships, community action, arts and technology, environmental studies and international studies. Our beautiful 750-acre arboretum campus is located in the historic New England seaport community of New London.

CONNECTIONS is Connecticut College's reinvention of liberal arts education. It is a new kind of curriculum that lets you integrate your interests into a meaningful educational pathway, to carry you through college and into a fulfilling, effective career and life.

A Glimpse at Music

Courses You Could Take

MUS 131 Foundational Theory for Musicians

An intensive study of the rudiments of music theory with particular emphasis on the development of musicianship skills.

MUS 122 Making Music at the Keyboard

Scales, intervals, chords at the keyboard. Introduction to melodic construction and harmonic progressions through exercises and selected piano pieces.

MUS 102 Music through Time and Society

A study of the significant works in music history from the Middle Ages to the present with an emphasis on developing skills for the art of listening.

MUS 132 Tonal Theory I

Introduction to the harmonic practices of the 18th and 19th centuries. Emphasis on writing skills as well as on the analysis of representative works and the development of aural skills.

MUS 323 Post-Tonal Theory

Theoretical and analytical study of 20th- and 21st-century music, focusing on developments in the areas of pitch, rhythm, texture, and form.

Theodore Arm

Adjunct Professor of Music, Violin

Theodore "Teddy" Arm has delighted audiences throughout the United States, Canada, Europe and Asia with his artistry. He has appeared as soloist, recitalist and guest artist with such well-known organizations as The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Group for Contemporary Music, New York's Festival Chamber Players and the Boston Chamber Music Society.

Gary A. Buttery

From his hometown of Omaha, Nebraska, Gary attended the University of Kansas and the University of Northern Colorado where he received his Bachelor and two masterss degrees in tuba and music theory and composition. An active performer, conductor, educator, and composer, he is published by Cimarron Music and Theodore Presser.

John Clark

Adjunct Associate Professor of Music

John Clark has been a visiting assistant professor since 2004 working with the jazz band and teaching American Music, the History of Jazz and the History of Western Music, a first-year seminar dealing with jazz on film, as well as various music theory and Introduction to Music courses.

Mathias Elmer

Ian Frenkel

Adjunct Assistant Professor of Music

Ian (Yahn) Frenkel, an expatriate of the former Soviet Union, is active as an arranger, conductor, composer, educator, and pianist in the New England area, and currently holds the position of the Director of Cadet Instrumental Music and Bands at the United States Coast Guard Academy in New London, Connecticut.

Patricia L. Harper

Adjunct Professor of Music

Patricia Harper, flutist, enjoys a career as performer, educator, and scholar. On the faculty at Connecticut College since 1975, she directed a "Back to Bach" series for ten years, a "Women in Music" for six years, and is a founding member of the Connecticut College Woodwind Quintet.

Peter Jarvis

Adjunct Associate Professor of Music

Peter Jarvis (b. 1959, Hackensack, New Jersey) is a percussionist, drummer, conductor, composer, music copyist, print music editor and college professor. He is an Associate Director of the Composers Concordance and serves as Chairman of the Board of Directors.

Jamil Jorge

Mark McCormick

Adjunct Associate Professor of Music

Mark McCormick has performed in a wide variety of musical genres throughout the United States, Canada, and Japan. He has been a member of the United States Coast Guard Band since 1996, and with that organization has performed for three presidents, numerous foreign heads of state, and other high level dignitaries, as well as numerous tours across the United States and Far East.

Wendy K. Moy

Assistant Professor of Music, Director of Choral Activities, Head of Music Education

Wendy K. Moy is a conductor, soprano, and nonprofit founder from Washington State. Dr.Moy was just named the third-place winner of The American Prize in Choral Conducting, professional division. She is currently the Director of Choral Activities and Music Education at Connecticut College and co-founder/co-artistic director of Chorosynthesis Singers.

Sean Nelson

Adjunct Instructor of Music

Sean Nelson plays trombone in the U.S. Coast Guard Band and the U.S. Coast Guard Dixieland Jazz Band. In addition, he is staff arranger for the concert band and music director and lead trombonist for the Guardians Big Band.

Patrice Newman

Adjunct Assistant Professor of Music

Pianist Patrice Newman collaborates frequently in chamber music and art song. She has performed in concerts in the New York area including the Riverside Church, Hudson Highlands Music Festival, Peconic Chamber Orchestra, and in a Weill Recital Hall chamber music debut as a winner of the Artists International competition.

Kelli O'Connor

Adjunct Instructor in Music, Clarinet

Clarinetist Kelli O’Connor enjoys a varied and vibrant career as a soloist, educator and chamber and orchestral musician. A founding member of the Chameleon Arts Ensemble of Boston and the Radiance Woodwind Quintet, Ms. O’Connor is principal clarinet of the Eastern Connecticut Symphony Orchestra and a former member of the Connecticut Orchestra, and appears frequently with the Vermont Symphony, Hartford Symphony Orchestra and as acting principal clarinet of the New Haven Symphony.

Kumi Ogano

Adjunct Associate Professor in Music

Pianist Kumi Ogano has earned universal acclaim as one of the authoritative performers of music by Japanese composers Toru Takemitsu and Akira Miyoshi. "The New York Times" praised her playing as “gracefully voiced, sensitively shaped, and richly emotional,” and "The Asahi" wrote, “Her rich musicality and technical virtuosity are simply amazing.”

Peter Selinsky

Megan Sesma

Adjunct Assistant Professor of Music, Harp

Megan Sesma has performed in venues that range from Tchaikovsky Hall in Moscow Russia, the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, Carnegie Hall and numerous concert halls in South America. Her experience has placed her under the batons of some great conductors, ranging from Neeme Jarvi and Yuri Temirkanov to John Williams and Jerry Goldsmith. Ms. Sesma has also shared the stage with such legends of contemporary and popular music as Quincy Jones, Herbie Hancock, Diana Krall and Dianne Reeves.

Samantha Talmadge

Adjunct Assistant Professor of Music

Vocalist Samantha Talmadge has performed as a soloist with many major symphony orchestras, including the New Haven Symphony Orchestra, Hartford Symphony, New Britain Symphony and Chatter Chamber Ensemble. She has been a performer with professional companies such as Musica Romantica and Teatro Nuevo Mexico in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and has also performed with Santa Fe Opera’s outreach program in Donizetti’s "The Nightbell."

Joshua Thomas

Adjunct Instructor in Music, saxophone

Dr. Joshua Thomas is an active concert saxophonist who is able to perform in a variety of musical settings, from the concert hall to the bandstand. As a member of the Coast Guard Band since 2000, he has performed around the world as a featured soloist, chamber musician, ensemble member, and at nationally important ceremonies.

Margaret (Midge) Thomas

Professor of Music, President, New England Conference of Music Theorists, 2013-2015

Devoted to teaching, Midge Thomas strives to share with her students the power music theory, aural skills, and analysis have to open new paths for understanding and performing music. Courses include Foundational Theory for Musicians, Tonal Theory, Counterpoint, Post-Tonal Theory, Service-Learning Practicum, and Music Analysis.

Jaime L. Thorne

Adjunct Assistant Professor of Music, French horn

After nearly four years with the U.S. Coast Guard Band, Jaime Thorne left the Coast Guard with an Honorable Discharge and has resumed her focus on orchestral music, playing most recently with the Hartford Symphony, the Nutmeg Symphony and Penn's Woods, a music festival at the Pennsylvania State University. She was most recently principal horn with the Breckenridge Music Festival.

Erin Todisco

Libby Van Cleve

Adjunct Professor of Music

Libby Van Cleve, oboe teacher at Connecticut College, Wesleyan University and Director of Yale’s Oral History of American Music, is recognized as one of the foremost interpreters of chamber and contemporary music for the oboe.

James Dale Wilson

Dale Wilson writes music for a variety of media, including large and small jazz ensemble, full orchestra, chamber ensemble, string orchestra, wind ensemble, jazz chorus, Chinese instrumental ensemble, and rock ensemble. As an ethnomusicologist, Wilson’s principal areas of research are Guangdong ritual and ritual music, the interpenetration of opera and ritual, and Southeast Chinese perspectives on migration and transnationalism.

Why Music?

Student Interview

Avery Yurman

Student Interview

Q: Why Connecticut College?

A: I wanted to pursue music within a broader liberal arts setting. And when I visited campus, the students and professors were incredibly friendly and welcoming. I felt at home. I was also interested in shared governance and the honor code.

Q: Did you study abroad?

A: I went to the Accademia dell'Arte in Arezzo, Italy, the fall semester of my junior year. The ADA had 32 music and theater students living together on campus and working with international faculty in a picturesque villa near vineyards and olive orchards.

Q: What role has the College's career development and internship program played for you?

A: The resume-building and personality workshops made an impression and helped me get organized. My career adviser reviewed my resume and helped me narrow down my job and grad school searches. I am realizing my dream and pursuing graduate studies in bassoon performance.

Courses You Could Take

Foundational Theory for Musicians, Making Music at the Keyboard, Music through Time and Society, Tonal Theory I, Post-Tonal Theory, Electroacoustic Music I

B.A., Applied Classical Guitar, Hartt School of Music; B.S., Engineering Acoustics and Music, College of Engineering, University of Hartford, M.M., Applied Classical Guitar, Yale University School of Music